The classical victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi assembly elections can be credited to the party’s social media to reach out to voters, for bringing back trust in the ‘muffler-man’, despite ridicule from the rivals.
The AAP’s social media team beat the BJP on its own turf.  This is how AAP gained a decisive advantage over BJP in the war over social media:
1. AAP started its campaigning in November which was much before any other party even thought of it. This helped the party to be well regulated and plan the strategy well in advance by introducing ‘Delhi Dialogues’ in the public and social spaces.
2. Being an IITian, Kejriwal attracted great number of volunteers from IIT, who began sentiment analysis and created a research tool to measure public opinion on social media which had helped shape the AamAadmi Party’s (AAP) election strategy in Delhi. A Facebook group of their supporters in the campus exceeded 1,000 members.
3. Early planning, helped address concerns about party’s stability. The ‘Muffler Man’ campaign on social media had the party laughing all the way to the bank as it saw a “rise” in donations ahead of Delhi assembly election.
4. The algorithm developed by the IIT-B group sifted through the language that constituted thousands of tweets to assess reactions to specific issues affecting the voters of Delhi.
5. With over 100 million Facebook users and 33 million people on twitter in India, digital bulletin boards on which views and proclivities were freely and emphatically expressed, which formed the engine of AAP’s game plan.
6. The platform was used to respond to every step taken by the opposing party. Few examples:
After the BJP’s online team portrayed Bedi as ‘Iron Lady’ and ‘Crane Bedi’, AAP’s online army responded by posting videos of Bedi seemingly walking away from an interview on Times Now and kick started the hashtag “I-run-ladyâ€. AAP also turned BJP’s ad campaign targeting Kejriwal on its head, demanding an apology for its “casteist ad†that referred to his “upadravigotraâ€. He said BJP had offended the entire “baniya†community (of which he is a part), which acted as a masterstroke considering the community traditionally votes for the BJP.
7. The early social media campaigning not only wooed people but also motivated them to volunteer and support the party in their own way. The idea of ‘Muffler Man’initially came from a volunteer in Mumbai. Another volunteer from London made witty creative which further made the campaign famous.
8. The most concerning issue of women safety in India was addressed through video campaigns on women safety, which became viral on social media and attracted attention of youthspecially young girls.
9. The party used this platform to welcome new thoughts and perspectives, which were later analysed through their sentiment analysis. So, everything the party spoke on these platforms became a part of the poll agenda plucked directly from the aam voices.Â
10. AAP, comparatively being a new party, was known, accepted and liked for the positivity of campaigns being introduced. These vibrant campaigns helped them to successfuly introduce their agendas to a larger audience.